Shopping Journey

Shopper journeys should be about discovery, not design. You should be learning about how your customers shop, not deciding what is the best way for them to shop and then forcing them to conform.

Think beyond the buy: shopping is an omnichannel journey.

The stages of the customer lifecycle

The goal of every business is to convert people into paying customers. Conversion rates are not the only metric worth looking at, though — because the customers a business converts may end up being low-quality customers who buy once and never again.

This is why the bigger picture matters. There are six stages each customer goes through, and learning how to optimise each one sets a business up for better long-term customers.

1 · Reach

Where the relationship begins — when they first become aware your brand, product or service exists. In most cases your work started long before this: consumers see an average of 362 marketing messages each day and notice only 86 of them. And the old rule of thumb holds — a consumer has to see your message seven times before they are even aware of it.

2 · Engage

They start paying attention to what others are saying about you, and to how you respond to service requests and complaints. Brands that publicly engage and provide customer service through social media have an advantage at this stage.

3 · Evaluate

Every customer goes through some version of this, whether it is months of research and comparison or a quick gut check. One of the most effective ways to stand out from competitors here is by offering promotions.

4 · Buy

Crunch time, when consumers make their final decision. Providing help is critical at this point: 83% of consumers require some degree of support.

5 · Experience

Attracting a new customer is six to seven times more expensive than keeping an existing one. Now is when consumers start to form their lasting opinion about your products and your brand. On top of the obvious — delivering a quality product — you can ensure success here by providing exceptional service and support. Every interaction is an opportunity to prove you are interested in building a relationship.

6 · Bonding

The final stage, where you cement the relationship. Keep providing quality service and support, nurture the connection with proactive engagement, and take every opportunity to create an emotional bond. You will see customers jumping back into the lifecycle by buying again — and encouraging others to join them.

One bad experience can lose a customer. Brand advocates can help attract new ones.

Making sense of today’s new shopper journey

In the new retail reality, the industry has to forget everything it has ever learned — and, in turn, taught us — about channels. Farewell to channels and omnichannel; that is just the industry talking to itself. Shoppers simply call it shopping.

To survive and thrive, retail must be shopper-centric. This era of retail is controlled by shoppers, and the only channel that matters is that of shoppers, collectively and increasingly individually. The shopper is effectively the channel — and the quicker the industry wraps its head around that, the better.

To succeed, a brand has to cut through the noise of every other brand trying to make an impression. Rather than impressions, a brand needs engagement — and on a human level, that means listening every bit as much as talking.

Retailers need to engage shoppers when, where and in the ways shoppers want. Within that universe of touchpoints, they need to present and deliver a seamless, branded experience throughout. And with the capabilities afforded by big data analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence, retailers need to keep advancing personalisation and customisation — no two shoppers are truly alike, and therefore no two campaigns should be either.

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now. Chinese proverb

For retail, the best time to build a branded, direct-to-consumer shopping experience was 20 years ago, at the dawn of the e-commerce era. That did not happen. So the next best time is now.

Understanding the apparel shopper journey

Where journeys start

• 73% of shopping journeys begin with shoppers looking for a specific item, or visiting a multi-brand store or site.
• Only 27% start with a consumer looking for a specific brand.

Journeys that begin with a consumer searching for a specific brand are more likely to end in a purchase at brand-owned stores or websites — where spend is 86% higher than in other retail shopping formats.

Key question. Given most journeys do not start by looking for a specific brand, how do you improve your brand’s value proposition while operating in a store-centric, item-specific world?

How the journey runs

• 68% of journeys were one-stop purchases.
• 64% took less than an hour.
• When people decided not to make a purchase in a store, almost a quarter of the time it was because the right size or colour was not there.

Key question. How can you increase conversion given consumers’ short shopping journeys? What are your customers’ transaction triggers?

Where shoppers buy

Despite all the buzz, over 75% of branded apparel purchases are still made in stores today. But online is critically important: when people shop online, their basket size — both number of items and amount of spend — is bigger.

In store, purchases concentrate in the top four brick-and-mortar retailers (Walmart, Kohl’s, Target, Macy’s), with the rest split between brand-owned and other. Online, the split runs between Amazon, brand-owned, the same top four retailers, and other.

Key question. Is your business well prepared to meet shoppers where they are going for their journeys now and in the future?

After the purchase

Despite the fast-fashion craze, consumers do not always seek newness:

• 89% of customers want to repurchase the same or a similar item in the future.
• When customers look to repurchase, they are 35% more likely to go to a brand store or website.

Key question. How can brands capitalise on consumers’ desire for repeat purchases, and their propensity to engage directly with the brand store or site?